Water

Rory: My name is Rory O’Toole, and my.

[00:13] Matt: Name is Matt Schultz.

[00:14] Rory: And this is how to be the.

[00:17] Matt: Podcast where we discuss ancient wisdom, modern hacks, paperback self help books, and pithy.

[00:23] Rory: Platitudes in the hopes of figuring out the best way to live this one precious and wild life.

[00:31] Matt: How do you like your water? Carbonated with lemon? Blessed with positive intentions and kind words, or stored in massive canisters in your closet in case of disaster? Join us as we discuss water. You.

[01:05] Rory: Hi, Matt.

[01:06] Matt: Hey, roar.

[01:08] Rory: How are you doing today? How’s it being back in? How’s your sleep? Because I know that you traveled. You’ve been having bad jet lag lately. The older you get, the worse your jet lag is.

[01:19] Matt: Yeah. So last night, sleep evaded, but it was okay. I got a head start on work. I probably got, like, 3 hours of sleep. I went to school, and I came back, and I did not take a nap. I made the executive decision not to take a nap.

[01:37] Rory: Oh, so you’re recording this unslept.

[01:40] Matt: Unslept. But I feel fine.

[01:42] Rory: Okay.

[01:42] Matt: And I think tonight, hopefully, I’ll get a good night’s sleep.

[01:48] Rory: Well, yeah, because you did sleep from 07:00 p.m. To 01:00 p.m.

[01:53] Matt: The day before.

[01:54] Rory: Day before is what we call it.

[01:57] Matt: Yeah, but that was a hollow sleep. There was a hollow in the middle of that from, like, 01:00 a.m. To 04:00 a.m. Or something like that.

[02:09] Rory: Yeah. It’s still a lot of sleep, though.

[02:12] Matt: Oh, sure. So I took, like, two Benadryls last night to make myself fall asleep, and it’s like, there’s just nothing stronger than jet lag. Like, the Benadryls are no match for the jet lag.

[02:28] Rory: I don’t get jet lag.

[02:31] Matt: Well, I don’t believe that.

[02:34] Rory: There’s so few good things about being me, and that’s one of them.

[02:38] Matt: You’re not flying 7 hours into the future.

[02:43] Rory: What are you talking about? Where was I?

[02:45] Matt: Just, I guess you were in England.

[02:48] Rory: Yeah, from LA.

[02:51] Matt: You’re right.

[02:52] Rory: It was exactly 7 hours. Actually, eight or nine or ten. I’m not talking about when I go to Chicago. I’m talking about all my european romps in spinnies, and I don’t get jet lag. The second I’m there, I’m on that time, and when I come back, I’m back on this time.

[03:12] Matt: I guess that’s fine. I don’t know why it’s annoying me.

[03:15] Rory: Yeah, I don’t know why either, because.

[03:17] Matt: Any mad at you?

[03:19] Rory: Yeah, anytime for me is a good time to sleep. Eight to 10 hours, so it doesn’t matter what time it is.

[03:25] Matt: Well, have you heard? This is definitely true, but I heard someone talk about how when you’re an insomniac and you tell people about being an insomniac for whatever reason, it’s people’s impulse to be like, oh, I sleep like a baby.

[03:41] Rory: Oh, and that’s rude.

[03:42] Matt: Yeah. And it’s weird. We don’t do that with other things. With diseases. We’re not. Like, my heart works. Never skips a beat.

[03:58] Rory: I can honestly say I’ve never, ever reacted that way to someone who has insomnia. I feel so much deep compassion for people with insomnia.

[04:09] Matt: I’m suffering jet lag right now.

[04:12] Rory: Right now, jet lag is a temporary solvable problem. And I think it’s interesting that I don’t have jet lag because it’s, like, a little unusual. It’s not interesting when someone’s a good sleeper.

[04:25] Matt: One might say that it’s a chronic problem for someone who lives between two continents.

[04:32] Rory: Oh, do you? Okay. All right, sure. Well, I sincerely apologize for telling you. I don’t get jet lag.

[04:44] Matt: No, I’m just playing it out a little bit. My anger and trying to find some justification for it. There is none.

[04:53] Rory: Frustrated at the beginning of the conversation?

[04:56] Matt: Well, I wasn’t. I’ve had a hard day. Can I tell you what else was hard about my day?

[05:02] Rory: Yeah, please do.

[05:03] Matt: This morning, I cut my thumb with a knife.

[05:07] Rory: Oh, that. Honestly, my thumbs aren’t cut. Just so you know, totally intact.

[05:17] Matt: You can wash your hands whenever you want and not have to worry about changing the bandaid. And literally, the bandaid cannot come off. It’s the type of cut. The bandaid is a key part of what’s holding my body together right now. Take it away, and all the blood will just drain out of me.

[05:37] Rory: Honestly, there’s nothing worse than a cut in an unfortunate place. Even if it’s a tiny cut, it’s still horrendous.

[05:46] Matt: Horrendous. And it was a deep cut. I just bought this knife, so it was very sharp, and then you’re like, why did that happen? Why did I do. Now, now this is my day. It could have very easily not been my day. One thinks. One thinks because we’re not aware of the way in which that cut was written into the very fabric of creation at the big bang, along with everything else.

[06:14] Rory: A cut, a burn, a fall, that is so sliding doors. It’s the most sliding doors moments of most people’s lives. Like, oh, no, I’m so close to not ruining my life.

[06:26] Matt: Yeah, I could have. Yeah, it was. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then, no, I won’t actually tell. Should I tell this story? A little gross. But I was, like, putting something in my backpack today, and all of a sudden I was like, where’s the band aid? It’s gone. I can’t find it. And then it’s a new semester at school. There were a lot of new people there. I met some people, introduced them to myself, to some people, was chatting. Then I walk a few more steps. It’s on my collar.

[06:59] Rory: That’s so funny.

[07:04] Matt: Horrible.

[07:05] Rory: Horrible. Wow.

[07:09] Matt: I have another story of today.

[07:12] Rory: I know you texted me when I woke up that you got into a fight.

[07:16] Matt: A terrible fight. Now, I did not ask to speak to the manager, which I think shows that the Karen discourse is working okay for Karen. Yeah, I was talking to Claire about this earlier. I think that what separates a chronic complainer from a true Karen is knowing when to stop or not even knowing when to stop, but stopping. Okay. Like, the Karen will not stop until justice is served, and justice will never be served. So they’ll just keep crusading and crusading, but don’t.

[08:03] Rory: Another key factor is, like, that the Karen is not always in the right.

[08:07] Matt: Yeah, very. I guess that’s true. But the Karen always thinks they’re.

[08:14] Rory: Yeah, I guess we’re talking about living in a world of objective.

[08:18] Matt: So, okay. The Karen is very often not actually correct, and is just often being racist or outrageous. But let’s talk about righteous Karens for a second. Karens who have truly faced some sort of injustice in the public sphere.

[08:40] Rory: Yeah, a line cutter, let’s say, or your coupon is not.

[08:52] Matt: You know, it’s like, okay, you speak up, you make your voice heard, the chips fall where they will. Can you accept it? And now move on, or will you burn down the store and yourself in the process?

[09:09] Rory: Okay, yeah, tell the story. I haven’t heard it.

[09:13] Matt: Today. I was at this horrible grocery store where it’s always chaotic, and there was a guy, two people in front of me in the ten items or less line with a full *** basket. Not a basket, a cart. A cart. We’re talking a 60 item haul. This is groceries for a family for maybe a week and a half, even.

[09:44] Rory: Wow.

[09:46] Matt: And the guy behind him in line had almost just as egregious, not quite as bad. It was probably, like, 30 items. It’s probably like a three day shop rather than a week and a half. So I’m like, you got too much stuff to the guy from you? No, to the first guy.

[10:11] Rory: To 60 plus?

[10:13] Matt: Yeah. He’s like, I don’t care. Oh, you don’t care? You don’t care about society? You don’t care about rules? I said that you don’t care about order. And then I turned to the guy at the register, and I’m like, he’s got too many items. You can’t ring him up. And the guy was like, what am I going to do? And I was like, take some pride in your register. This is your register.

[10:43] Rory: Wow, you’re killing me. This is so funny.

[10:47] Matt: You got to own your register.

[10:50] Rory: It.

[10:54] Matt: Should be moving along. You should be so like, oh, my God. And then the next guy, so he runs them through the next guy. He does the most insane thing. He rings up ten of that guy’s items and then says, I’m stopping at ten.

[11:11] Rory: What, here?

[11:16] Matt: Yeah.

[11:17] Rory: So that’s how he enforces the ten items or less.

[11:20] Matt: It’s almost worse than not doing anything. So that guy freaked out. And actually, that’s kind of a grievance, too.

[11:30] Rory: So livid. It’s like, what do you want me to do? Get back in line?

[11:34] Matt: Yeah.

[11:35] Rory: How do I even explain that to the other cashier? Like, oh, these are already paid for groceries. That’s what would bother me the most, is explaining that.

[11:48] Matt: Then I realized that the register guy was going to have to relent and I was going to have to look the other way.

[11:57] Rory: Of course. Yeah.

[11:59] Matt: So I did. I think I literally looked the other way because I can’t bear the sight of injustice. And then I realized that I had made my voice heard.

[12:17] Rory: You did what you could.

[12:19] Matt: I did what I could.

[12:20] Rory: You stood up.

[12:22] Matt: It was time to let it go and move on. In a broken world in me, a broken man within it.

[12:29] Rory: I would love to be there. I don’t think I’ve ever been there. When you really laid someone like that.

[12:34] Matt: Yeah. It was so egregious. But am I supposed to not be outraged by such moments? Am I supposed to be like, whatever. Yeah, you are.

[12:48] Rory: For your own mental health, I guess. Yeah. But I personally would be like, that’s the hero we need. If I was there.

[13:00] Matt: Yeah.

[13:01] Rory: If I was there, I would be behind you like a little chihuahua. Yeah.

[13:12] Matt: And there were a lot of us in line who are doing the awkward holding, six items clutched in your arms thing.

[13:20] Rory: Well, did anyone else seem to support you in this?

[13:25] Matt: No. In fact, the girl next to me, who also had items awkwardly clutched in her arms, she was like, let it go. Don’t get me started on you.

[13:39] Rory: Yeah, if only I could, lady.

[13:42] Matt: Only I could. I’m working on it anyways, okay, so all of that jet lag, a cut thumb band aid collar, bandaid on the collar, a line dispute line injustice. It’s been a hard day. I’m sorry, but I’m trying to live in gratitude.

[14:06] Rory: I hope that. We hope. Maybe this recording will give you a little pep in your step. Why are you giggling?

[14:16] Matt: Just at the thought that I’m trying to live in gratitude. I’m so clearly not putting my energy there. I really should, though. Have we done a gratitude episode?

[14:28] Rory: No. Well, maybe this should be it.

[14:32] Matt: Like, we should just derail right now.

[14:35] Rory: No, I’m kidding. Okay, today we’re talking about something very different. No easy segue, I would say. We’re talking about water, drinking water, and our culture’s obsession with it. And should we be obsessed with it, and are we too well hydrated and all this and that? So I guess I can start with just spewing a few little facts about water.

[15:06] Matt: Okay.

[15:07] Rory: How much water should you be drinking a day as a man, Matt?

[15:13] Matt: Not eight cups a day. You’d have to be an idiot to believe in that myth. They don’t know the real answer.

[15:21] Rory: 15.5 gallons. Cups?

[15:25] Matt: Like a cup? Like a measuring cup.

[15:27] Rory: 8Oz. Yeah.

[15:29] Matt: Okay.

[15:30] Rory: And for women, it’s 11.5. But 20% of that can come from food.

[15:36] Matt: Oh, yeah. You get a lot of it from food. Also from coffee. People are like, coffee doesn’t hydrate you. It does.

[15:44] Rory: It does. Any beverage was basically hydrating you. Yeah, basically.

[15:49] Matt: Not as much as water, necessarily, but I think the difference is somewhat negligible.

[15:56] Rory: Well, yeah, it’s just that coffee makes you pee a lot, apparently. But you know what else makes. Yeah, it’s a diuretic.

[16:04] Matt: Water. Is water a diuretic?

[16:07] Rory: Yeah, exactly. Nothing makes me pee like water. I have to pee right now. I’m always tired, and I always have to pee.

[16:16] Matt: Yeah.

[16:17] Rory: Going back to. I never get jet lag. I sleep like a baby. Does it even matter if I’ve never, ever not been tired?

[16:25] Matt: Oh, like you’re tired.

[16:28] Rory: Yeah. What is the point of all the sleep I get?

[16:31] Matt: I don’t know. Today at school, I was like, wow, here’s a little gratitude. Being in rabbinical school, I get to study exactly what I’m passionate about. My teachers are so amazing. I was thinking, like, all of this would be so delightful if I wasn’t sleepy through it. And this isn’t just the jet lag. It’s going to say something I always feel when I’m in a school setting.

[17:01] Rory: Yeah.

[17:02] Matt: Sleepiness ruining life, sucking the joy out of life.

[17:06] Rory: Yeah. There’s people who are buzzing with energy all the time.

[17:11] Matt: They must be drinking more water than us.

[17:14] Rory: That’s the thing, is, no one drinks more water than me, okay? I’m always drinking water. Like last time I was eating with friends and the craft of water came and sat on the table, and my friend just put it right next to me and said, let’s just leave this by Rory.

[17:31] Matt: My God. So I went to a japanese restaurant when I was in the States, like a suburban japanese restaurant where you get that glass goblet of really icy water that they’re always refilling for you. It’s not just japanese restaurants. It’s like just a certain type of casual family restaurant, like a carafe, a craft of water. Yeah, but something about that glass Goblet with a stem.

[18:04] Rory: A glass goblet with a stem?

[18:08] Matt: Yes. Do you know the type of glass I’m thinking of?

[18:11] Rory: No.

[18:13] Matt: A short, blunt stem. It’s not like a wine glass. It’s like a Stella Artois glass. More.

[18:21] Rory: And it’s big.

[18:23] Matt: Oh, it’s big.

[18:24] Rory: And they pour it around.

[18:26] Matt: No, that’s your individual glass.

[18:29] Rory: Sorry.

[18:30] Matt: Okay, maybe this image isn’t hitting, but for me, I was like, this is a very unique water experience for me, the particular coldness and iciness of restaurant water in America, because they don’t do that for you in Europe or in Israel. They’re not giving you that icy, icy water.

[18:53] Rory: Well, can I tell you that that’s my problem when I travel internationally is that I am such an american hog just asking for refills of my water.

[19:05] Matt: Oh, look what your hair just did.

[19:07] Rory: Flipped. It’s very feathered today.

[19:10] Matt: Yeah, very Sarah faucet. Faucet water. And all.

[19:18] Rory: I need. I drink so much water, as I’ve mentioned, but it’s not because, like, trying to drink a lot of water, it’s because I’m always sleepy. I’m always thirsty. Okay, so, like, when I go traveling and I’m in Europe, I need a ton of water just to keep my thirst quenched. But I feel very.

[19:47] Matt: Yeah, they don’t get it. Everything is less water in Europe. The toilets are less full of water.

[19:52] Rory: Yeah, absolutely. It’s like, I don’t understand why I’m so thirsty, or us Americans are so thirsty and Europeans are less thirsty.

[20:03] Matt: They drink small portions of incredibly rich water, and it’s just very satisfying.

[20:13] Rory: Well, I actually looked into this recently, and there were people who are saying, no, that the water is just better, more hydrating in Europe because there’s more minerals in it.

[20:23] Matt: That sounds like nonsense, and it is nonsense.

[20:26] Rory: Yeah.

[20:27] Matt: Wow. Okay. I’m thinking of so many water related topics they want to talk about all of a sudden. What leapt to my mind just now is, remember that thing about saying words to water and it reforms the crystals?

[20:42] Rory: Oh, yeah. Can you explain that out a little bit more?

[20:47] Matt: Okay. There was this japanese scientist, I dare say, who I know that if you say nice words to water, the crystals align themselves in these beautiful, symmetrical shapes. When you flash freeze it and look under a microscope versus when you say mean words to it, it looks distorted and evil. I guess this was supposed to show it’s been debunked, I believe, but it was supposed to show that our human thought energies affect matter. And there’s a version of this that’s become like this YouTube challenge where people put rice and water in a jar, in two jars, and say nice things to one and bad things to the other, and apparently the bad one will rot and the nice one will stay fresh.

[21:51] Rory: Yeah. My question is, how stupid can people be to believe that that’s a thing?

[21:57] Matt: I kind of believe it for some reason.

[22:00] Rory: Wait, it has to be the cadence of what you’re saying or the tone of what you’re saying, because I don’t think rice and water speak human languages.

[22:11] Matt: Yeah, but maybe it’s not about the word. Maybe it’s about our feeling associated with the word. Who knows? Or maybe it’s like, because we live in a matrix.

[22:25] Rory: If you’re singing a jolly song, let’s say a wordless, jolly song to some water, and then at the other water, you just shout nonsense. But they’re not words. But you’re just angry and you’re like.

[22:40] Matt: Yeah.

[22:41] Rory: Thing. Is that what we’re supposed to believe?

[22:45] Matt: No, I think you’re supposed to believe that even if you were like Hitler, like, that would make the water bad. Even if you said, oh, really? Yeah.

[22:57] Rory: Okay, that’s idiotic.

[23:00] Matt: I don’t know. Maybe we should try the rice experiment and see. Wouldn’t that be fun for our listeners?

[23:08] Rory: Yeah. You know what we both have abundance of in our houses? Rice and probably jars, too.

[23:16] Matt: I just moved. I had so many jars in this place.

[23:20] Rory: Pasta sauce.

[23:22] Matt: Yeah. Jars are so important for the home.

[23:27] Rory: You got to have several jars. Okay. We’re going to do the rice experiment and report back?

[23:31] Matt: Yeah.

[23:32] Rory: Okay.

[23:33] Matt: But just in case. Just in case. In the meantime, until the results get back, we advise saying nice words to your water.

[23:44] Rory: I also drink a lot like the rise of sparkling water. Bubbly water. Have we seen a more meteoric rise in our lifetime?

[23:54] Matt: Yeah, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. I forget the guy’s name who invented soda water. Joseph Priestley, I think.

[24:05] Rory: Joseph soda.

[24:06] Matt: Joseph Soda. So he was also the person who discovered oxygen, which is a pretty major discovery. But he said that soda water was his happiest discovery. Of course it’s true. There’s something joyful about soda water. I think you’ve probably heard me make this spiel before. I think it’s a relic from a time when we believed that science had the power to improve upon nature, rather than just destroy nature.

[24:43] Rory: When was this invented?

[24:45] Matt: I think it was, like, the 18 hundreds. Dare we check?

[24:51] Rory: Joseph Priestley, chemist and natural philosopher. Yeah, he lived 1773 to 18. Four.

[25:02] Matt: Okay. Yeah.

[25:05] Rory: Time to be alive.

[25:07] Matt: Right in the thick of a lot of fascinating technological changes that really probably felt like they were making the world better. Unlike our technology today, which is just. I mean, you probably disagree with this analysis, but I think we have much less faith in progress than the Joseph Priestleys did. We’re a little worried that it’s destroying us now, but I think. Yeah, the age of soda water, I mean, it’s so clearly an improvement on creation.

[25:41] Rory: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And the way that it is so innocent, yet so good, unlike soda, which is sugary and spikes our blood sugar and decays our teeth.

[25:56] Matt: Yes, soda water. It’s water that leaps out of the glass to meet you, give you a.

[26:03] Rory: Little kisses on your.

[26:09] Matt: Know, this. This comes from one of our listeners, Lucy. She pointed this out to me. It’s water you can’t chug.

[26:19] Rory: Oh. Which is hard for you, which makes you slow down, because let me tell you, Matt Schultz does not sip on a glass all day long. This is a man. I’ll be on the phone with him, and he’ll go down underwater. It sounds like he’s down underwater for, like, 20 seconds, and then come back up like it. Just drown his body in a trough of water.

[26:47] Matt: Yeah. I like to be forcefully slowed down in my favorite cafe. One of the things I love about is that they have sodon tap, which is, like, obviously the best thing ever. Way better than soda in a bottle. And you can get it in a pint glass, like for a beer. Like for a pint of beer. Just a big old soda. And I’ll sit there, and I’ll nurse that soda for an hour.

[27:15] Rory: I mean, it’s truly what gets me through my work day is having my spindrift, and it’s what gets me through. It’s. My joy at the end of the day is having my big pellegrino at night.

[27:27] Matt: I wish I had soda water right now. You know what’s terrible, though, is flat soda water.

[27:32] Rory: Yeah. It’s really disappointing.

[27:35] Matt: You’d think it’s just water again.

[27:38] Rory: It’s kind of not.

[27:40] Matt: It’s not. It’s something else.

[27:44] Rory: Especially if it’s a natural sparkling water, and then it goes flat. It’s really, like, thick or something.

[27:51] Matt: Yeah, there’s a taste. There’s a taste.

[27:56] Rory: Tangy. Getting tangy.

[27:59] Matt: Yeah.

[28:01] Rory: Okay. I’m like, when did I start drinking all this water? Because when I was little, as a kid, there wasn’t this water culture. I never drank water as a kid. It was like a sip at the water fountain for lunch. It was like a juice box. And there we go. That’s my hydration for the day. I had water at dinner. That was it.

[28:22] Matt: Okay, so do you remember in college, my computer had those fruit stickers on it?

[28:29] Rory: Of course. And I also remember the gallon you would carry around.

[28:34] Matt: Oh, I brought that to college. Okay. And that had the fruit stickers on it, too.

[28:38] Rory: Yes, of course.

[28:40] Matt: That I started in high school, and that was part of a weight loss.

[28:46] Rory: Regimen that had to have been a campaign to lose weight. I think that’s when I started drinking water too.

[28:53] Matt: Okay. I don’t think I’ve ever said this out loud before, but this was my weight loss theory, okay. It was about percentages. If you drank a cup of water and it had one crumb from a doughnut in it.

[29:20] Rory: I love this.

[29:21] Matt: Okay, you see where this is going? Your body just wouldn’t notice the donut, because it’s like, no, I’m drinking water. So extend a whole donut and then drink ten gallons of water. Your body is going to treat that donut like a crumb in the water. And so my plan was to have all the food I ate just be some crumbs. Crumbs of chicken, crumbs of donuts, whatever. In what was essentially my one true meal. A giant life size glass of jug of water.

[30:08] Rory: Yeah. You had this big.

[30:11] Matt: It worked. I was skinny.

[30:13] Rory: Yeah. That’s why it was essentially a water cooler, a mini water cooler that you would. And tease you for it, and you’d always hold it up and be like, this is the exact amount of water a man should be drinking a day.

[30:34] Matt: To properly. To properly balance.

[30:38] Rory: Incredibly cumbersome. And that is a big thing. I want to talk about the type of person, the person who carries around a giant heavy water bottle everywhere they.

[30:52] Matt: Go.

[30:55] Rory: Where are you going? That they don’t have water and a means to drink that water.

[31:02] Matt: I know I’m in a relationship with one of these people, so it’s sensitive.

[31:08] Rory: Well, have you ever asked him the.

[31:10] Matt: Biggest, the heaviest water bottle? I mean, I carry around a water bottle too. I’ve gone through phases with it.

[31:19] Rory: Why do you carry around a water bottle? Let’s interview you.

[31:23] Matt: Okay, so first of all, what if I don’t like the glasses where I’m going? What if they’re yucky?

[31:30] Rory: Okay, well, how often do you wash your water bottle?

[31:36] Matt: Not that often. Like once a week.

[31:38] Rory: See, because water bottles are really yucky to me. I’m like, this is some old *** tepid water that you filled up in the beginning of the day, and it’s like an insane amount of disgusting water that no one wants to drink.

[31:54] Matt: Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s really gross. Yeah. And you know, the person I’m dating with his giant water bottle is a daily water bottle washer.

[32:07] Rory: Well, good for him. Now, what kind of water bottle is it that he has?

[32:12] Matt: Well, it’s actually an insane water bottle. It looks like a silo. It looks like a grain silo, and it has a Brita filter built into it, so it’s like a heavy piece of agricultural equipment.

[32:31] Rory: Okay, so let me give you some scenarios. Would he bring this water bottle to a movie theater?

[32:37] Matt: Yeah.

[32:41] Rory: Would he bring it to a restaurant?

[32:43] Matt: Actually, no, not to a movie theater. But if we go out shopping for groceries, a long day of a long grocery haul.

[32:53] Rory: Like a car ride?

[32:56] Matt: Yeah. Well, no, we’re walking from store to store in the hot israeli sun. That’s water bottle worthy.

[33:04] Rory: Okay.

[33:05] Matt: If the trip requires some sort of big bag that you’re already carrying with you, the water bottle is going in.

[33:14] Rory: This is my thing. It’s like it’s weighing you down. People like, free yourself from the weight, the literal weight.

[33:22] Matt: I know, the weight of water.

[33:24] Rory: It’s like everywhere you go, there is water.

[33:28] Matt: Yeah, there’s water. Water everywhere. Okay. But on a grocery trip, there’s no water. You’re without water.

[33:35] Rory: You’re at a grocery store.

[33:38] Matt: I guess it’s different for us. We’re going to lots of different stores in the market. How long are you for hours. Oh, it’s arduous.

[33:51] Rory: Oh, really? Like, more than 3 hours?

[33:53] Matt: Like, probably, like 2 hours.

[33:55] Rory: Okay, well, this is the thing. I think that it’s interesting that people want to carry around these giant water bottles, and I, of course, know and love people who do it, too.

[34:07] Matt: It’s very of our time.

[34:09] Rory: It’s so of our time. And it’s usually, like, a more outdoorsy type person who does it. And younger folks. Okay. I feel like they have created the Visco girls. Yeah, visco girls. And they’re. What’s the water bottle with the cocoa pelli on it?

[34:26] Matt: Why am I forgetting aqua flask?

[34:29] Rory: No, hydro flask. That hideous logo.

[34:36] Matt: You don’t like cocopelli.

[34:41] Rory: And the Stanley cup? All these gen zers with their water bottle personalities.

[34:51] Matt: Yeah.

[34:51] Rory: Like drinking water and having the water bottle is their personality.

[34:56] Matt: Back in the day, you had to get a generic water cooler jug and add personality yourself with fruit stickers.

[35:03] Rory: It was nalgine or nothing, first of all.

[35:08] Matt: Yeah, it was nalgine or nothing. Or like, this, like this type of generic sport bottle. Sport bottle.

[35:15] Rory: Sport bottle.

[35:16] Matt: Gatorade.

[35:17] Rory: That green gatorade water bottle.

[35:19] Matt: Yeah. Those were kind of fun, just drinking that. Like, the opaque plastic. Yeah. Gross.

[35:27] Rory: Sitting in the hot car, drinking that microplastic. When I was growing up, we just had bottled water. We didn’t have too much of a concept of. I think it’s because we all believed in recycling then.

[35:43] Matt: Yeah.

[35:43] Rory: And so we didn’t have a concept of wasting bottles of water. I didn’t really conceptualize that until my early twenty s. Yeah.

[35:56] Matt: I still love a bottle of water sometimes.

[35:59] Rory: That’s okay.

[36:00] Matt: I got to say.

[36:02] Rory: Yeah. A nice big Evian or Fiji. Now, when I go to the airport now, I stop buying the cheapest bottle of water.

[36:09] Matt: Oh, you get the Fiji. I get the spring for the Fiji.

[36:12] Rory: The avion. Because I’m like, dasani is, as we all know, disgusting. Aquafina is nasty. Smart water is just tap water.

[36:24] Matt: I like smart water.

[36:26] Rory: It’s like, I’m just going to spend the extra dollar. It’s already a $30 bottle of water. I’ll spend 31.

[36:33] Matt: Smart water I don’t think is just water. Don’t they do reverse hydrolysis on it or something?

[36:41] Rory: I mean, it’s not spring water.

[36:44] Matt: It’s not spring water.

[36:45] Rory: Yeah.

[36:47] Matt: Well, I would prefer that. I don’t want them damaging some natural spring.

[36:51] Rory: Is it damaging.

[36:53] Matt: I don’t know. Oh, my goodness. That book I read recently, leave the world behind.

[37:03] Rory: Okay.

[37:04] Matt: I told you about it. It’s about like an apocalyptic event. But the main part of the apocalyptic event that we see the characters actually go through. A lot of it is kept vague, but what we see them go through is that they lose wifi. It’s kind of a book about the horror of not having wifi. And the dad’s whole character journey is just about how little he knows about anything. And it’s all stuff like that. Well, does it harm the springs? I don’t know. How do they get it from the spring? Just like what a vague, loose grasp of the world we have when it really comes down to it. Now, I do want to talk about the water wars, but I also want to talk about a glass of lemon water in the morning.

[37:55] Rory: Well, choose your own adventure. You pick one.

[37:58] Matt: Have you ever been on the lemon in the water in the morning thing?

[38:02] Rory: No.

[38:03] Matt: Really? A religion?

[38:05] Rory: I think maybe a couple of times in my life. Like, literally not even a couple of periods, like, a couple of times. But there is actually no benefit to it.

[38:15] Matt: Why not? It’s a glass of water.

[38:18] Rory: Oh.

[38:19] Matt: I drink a lemon juice.

[38:20] Rory: I drink a glass of water in the morning. But adding lemon juice doesn’t do anything.

[38:27] Matt: It gives you vitamin c. Okay.

[38:32] Rory: But that’s not why people do it. They do it because they think there’s some sort of, like, diuretic and diet property to it.

[38:38] Matt: I feel like, yeah.

[38:40] Rory: Makes up my digestive system.

[38:43] Matt: Yeah, it doesn’t.

[38:45] Rory: Not more than a glass of water.

[38:49] Matt: Well, okay. Yeah, that’s probably for the best. The lemon part of it was always the drawback. I like the water in the morning, the lemon. It’s just that feeling of having your teeth all lemony.

[39:02] Rory: Yeah.

[39:03] Matt: Like the enamel has been stripped off of it.

[39:07] Rory: Well, I think one of the biggest diet culture myths is this idea of acidic foods versus alkaline foods and how those are processed differently in your body. Like alkaline water or whatever.

[39:21] Matt: Yeah. Cancer can’t form in the alkaline body. Someone said that to me once.

[39:26] Rory: I forget who, and that just isn’t true at all. Do you know how acidic your stomach is? It’s, like, way more acidic than any food that has ever existed.

[39:35] Matt: You’re right. It’s full of acid.

[39:38] Rory: That’s all it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re eating. And a lemon is an alkaline food for some reason.

[39:44] Matt: Well, it’s acidic outside your body, but it becomes alkaline inside your body.

[39:49] Rory: Like, this does not make any sense. How could that be a thing?

[39:53] Matt: That’s why. Yeah. It’s a religion. It’s like transubstantiation in the catholic church.

[39:59] Rory: Yeah.

[40:00] Matt: It requires faith.

[40:02] Rory: Every healthy food is alkaline, and every bad food is actually acidic. Like sugar.

[40:09] Matt: Yeah. Alkaline water. I do like the word alkaline.

[40:13] Rory: Yeah, it’s a nice alkaline.

[40:18] Matt: My daughter. Alkaline. Alkaline just as it is for a girl.

[40:26] Rory: Alkaline. What if you submitted? There’s this woman on Instagram who Matt and I follow, and she’s a name consultant. And one thing, she’ll come up with names for your child, and you might send her a name that you like, but you’re not going to name your kid that. So what if you sent alkaline? What would she come up with? I think elka creams to.

[40:57] Matt: Abigail, maybe alika. Alika. Coraline.

[41:05] Rory: Coraline, yeah.

[41:08] Matt: Caroline.

[41:11] Rory: To switch topics, the water wars. I mean, we keep being told that water is going to be the most. It is a very precious resource, and in the future of climate change, we’re not going to have enough.

[41:25] Matt: Yeah. Well, I definitely think we need to stop pooping and peeing into giant buckets of clean water.

[41:36] Rory: Is it clean?

[41:38] Matt: Yeah, it’s completely fresh water. It’s from a tap.

[41:42] Rory: Sick.

[41:44] Matt: It’s touched your toilet, but when it came out of the tap, it was clean.

[41:51] Rory: What’s the water level in a toilet in Israel?

[41:54] Matt: Low.

[41:56] Rory: Okay.

[41:57] Matt: It’s a low rider.

[41:59] Rory: What’s, like, the logic behind the big bowl of water here?

[42:03] Matt: I don’t know, but it’s so big and full, it’s kind of insane.

[42:08] Rory: It’s interesting. Is it just a custom? Like, oh, when we first started just with toilets, we just filled it up.

[42:17] Matt: Yeah. I don’t know. I would love to hear the history.

[42:22] Rory: The theory behind what’s better.

[42:25] Matt: Yeah. Because it’s like its cup runneth over, and then if, heaven forbid, the toilet clogs. You don’t have a lot of leeway. You’re like, maybe if I flush this time it’ll work. You don’t have the kind of leeway you need to be making those guesses.

[42:52] Rory: Yeah, but we’re told to drink all this water every day to stay healthy and hydrated and for our skin and for our skin and our cell health and yada yada blada blada. But isn’t that bad for the environment if everyone’s drinking gallons of water a day?

[43:13] Matt: Yeah, it definitely is. But also, it’s like what you said before about a lot of our water coming from our food. Think of how much water it takes to grow a cow.

[43:27] Rory: Oh, so true. Yes. So much water to grow a cow. So much water to grow crops. So much water to wash our bodies. To wash our clothes.

[43:42] Matt: Yeah. The washing of the body. The washing of the clothes. Yeah. We live a very water dependent life.

[43:48] Rory: Water abundant, too.

[43:50] Matt: You know what? Okay, I don’t want to call this person a friend, but I knew a person once who was a real plant. Gay had a real forest in the house.

[44:09] Rory: Yeah.

[44:10] Matt: And I was like, isn’t that kind of like a waste of water? I said that once, which is maybe like an annoying thing to say, but his response was like, no, it’s not a waste of water. Like, things like this are a waste of water. And he held up something plastic, and it’s like, it takes water to make this kind of stuff too. All these machines are cooled with water and use water in ways that we wouldn’t necessarily expect.

[44:43] Rory: Yeah.

[44:44] Matt: To make a dog toy takes, like, I don’t know, three cups of water.

[44:50] Rory: I mean, anything new, that’s one of the huge criticisms of fast fashion is, like, all the water waste making your cheap forever 21 tank top.

[45:00] Matt: Yeah. It’s a little hard for me to picture, like, where does the water come in?

[45:05] Rory: Well, cotton is a crop, right?

[45:08] Matt: Okay. That I get, and.

[45:14] Rory: I don’t know, process.

[45:16] Matt: I know that linen is very water intensive.

[45:20] Rory: Yeah. But then it’s like this algorithm, this complex math that you have to do. It’s like, okay, linen takes a lot of water, but it’s a really durable fabric that you could have for a long time. Yada yada, blada blada. And we’re all back at square one.

[45:35] Matt: Yeah. Which brings us back to. The answer is always just less.

[45:41] Rory: Just less, but not less. Water consumption more.

[45:48] Matt: And say nice words to it.

[45:50] Rory: Are they being told to drink alkaline? Alkaline in Europe, are they being told to drink that much water?

[46:00] Matt: No, I think they would find it vulgar.

[46:05] Rory: Like a doctor wouldn’t say, oh, yeah, you need to drink more water to an Italian.

[46:11] Matt: French women don’t get dehydrated.

[46:16] Rory: They really don’t see. And like I said, I’m thirsty. That’s why I’m drinking.

[46:21] Matt: Okay, do you remember this discussion we had once, whereas thirst is less real than hunger?

[46:29] Rory: Yes.

[46:31] Matt: And you were like, why do you think that? Because thirst is in the mouth and hunger is in the stomach. I was like, yeah, I guess that is why I think that when I’m hungry, I feel like this really complex mechanical process is happening in my body. Like, my stomach is turning over and over looking for food. Whereas when I’m thirsty, I just feel this dryness in the mouth. And I’m like, wouldn’t some water feel great on that?

[47:04] Rory: Yeah. See, for me, like, thirst can feel really desperate. But I think it’s because you’ve denied yourself food before, so the hunger becomes more pronounced. But you would never deny yourself water.

[47:17] Matt: Yeah, well, I’ve denied myself water on fast days, holidays, like yom Kippur, right around the corner. And it’s like, yeah, you get really thirsty. But, yeah, it just feels more like. I don’t know, it feels less mechanical. It feels more. I don’t know, there’s something different about it. But I do find it interesting thinking about where we feel the desires for different things. Like that sleepiness is like, so in the eyes.

[47:46] Rory: Yes.

[47:51] Matt: And thirst is, like, really in the mouth and in the brain, like the thirst headache.

[47:58] Rory: Oh, yeah, that’s true. But it’s dry brain is the mouth in the head. When you get a headache, you have to think about why your head hurts. And it could be because you’re thirsty.

[48:08] Matt: Yeah.

[48:10] Rory: And if you’ve ever had your heart broken, you really feel it in your heart.

[48:16] Matt: You truly do.

[48:20] Rory: And that brings me to my 9th point. About one time you said to me, like, foods aren’t healthy or unhealthy. They’re either guilt. They’re just like degrees of guilt. And how the least guilty food for you is a cucumber, because it’s basically just drinking water.

[48:42] Matt: My friend Sophia calls cucumbers crunchy water. Yeah, it’s true. It’s just like, yeah. And that’s a solution to the, if you want to stay hydrated, pack a cucumber.

[49:03] Rory: Yeah. Instead of that heavy *** water bottle, pack a cucumber.

[49:07] Matt: That’s probably one of your glasses of water.

[49:10] Rory: Yeah. Well, I remember one time you said to me that it’s unbelievable that a watermelon is 92% water because everything that a watermelon is to us physically is contained in that remaining 8%.

[49:28] Matt: I think it’s actually, like, more than that. Can you look that up?

[49:33] Rory: I just looked it up before this episode. Wanted to bring it up.

[49:36] Matt: Yeah. It’s like, how is all of that hard green shell, that green, that pink, those seeds, all of that is just. But that’s the thing about life. Everything is more what it isn’t than what it is.

[49:57] Rory: Oh, interesting.

[49:58] Matt: My tibetan singing bowl, it’s all about the hollow, the negative.

[50:08] Rory: Nasty. What a nasty comment. I didn’t mean it like, I don’t know why the word nasty came out like that. Good. It’s nasty. And we’re 60% water, right? 60, 70.

[50:26] Matt: Depending on the day.

[50:29] Rory: How is that possible? I feel so solid.

[50:33] Matt: Yeah. I don’t feel like such a water creature. You know, who loves to bring that know this. Have you ever seen the show? You probably haven’t because you’re not deep into YouTube like I am. So it’s like, show called middle ground, and they basically have two people from two sides of an issue have an unproductive argument.

[50:59] Rory: Okay.

[50:59] Matt: And I watched one that was astronomers versus astrologers.

[51:05] Rory: Okay. I love that. I love that.

[51:09] Matt: Yeah. And this guy was like, well, the moon affects tides, and we’re 70% water. People love saying that. People who are like, love saying that. And obviously, people also love bringing up quantum physics to justify any magical belief that they have.

[51:34] Rory: Like, what do you mean?

[51:36] Matt: Well, according to quantum science, we’re all just energy, and it completely depends on your perspective. Okay, but reality depends on your perspective.

[51:48] Rory: I agree that that’s a cliche trope, but don’t you believe that, too?

[51:51] Matt: Yeah.

[51:54] Rory: And isn’t that what a ghost is? To me, I use quantum physics to justify the belief in energy that stuck around in the form of a woman in a victorian gown crying into a kerchief.

[52:10] Matt: Yes. She is quanta.

[52:13] Rory: Her energy was so strong.

[52:14] Matt: Quanta.

[52:16] Rory: I do believe that. But, okay, you love physics, I think, because it is intrinsically magical and also connects to your magical beliefs.

[52:30] Matt: I wouldn’t say I don’t use it to justify this or that belief, but it does fill me with a kind of wonder. It fills me with wonder. And I find that reading about it and watching videos about theoretical physics is sort of a spiritual practice in the sense of cultivating wonder and awe at the universe. About the double slit experiment. No, it’s like, okay, if you shoot particles at this board that has two holes in it, the particles will behave like a wave, up and down, up and down. And sometimes it’ll get through the top hole, sometimes through the bottom hole. And then when you see the impact pattern on the wall behind that, like, imagine you’re shooting paintball like a spray of paint. You’ll see it’s distributed between these two holes. But if you add a camera, if you add an observer, all of a sudden it stops behaving like a wave and starts behaving like a particle. And it chooses one side to go through and not the other. The presence of an observer fundamentally changes the reality. The particle is like, oh, someone’s watching me. I’ve got to decide what to be, how to be.

[54:02] Rory: Really?

[54:04] Matt: That is weird. That is just weird. And I don’t know what it means, and I don’t know what it means about victorian ghosts, and I don’t know what it means about saying nice words to water, but I do know that it means that the world is a very mysterious place that we don’t understand.

[54:23] Rory: That is truly unbelievable. And I have a question. What is quantum physics versus theoretical physics?

[54:31] Matt: I think that theoretical physics is just any part of physics that you can’t actually verify with experiments.

[54:41] Rory: But a lot of deep space stuff, maybe?

[54:46] Matt: Yes. And, like, stuff where you’re like, okay, there’s, like, a weird amount of gravitational force here that we can’t account for. So that means there must be a particle that we haven’t discovered yet that accounts for that. But you can’t actually test it. You’re just, like, making deductions based on the math and things like that. And then sometimes, like, with the Higgs boson particle, I think that was theoretical physics that then became real because they discovered it.

[55:25] Rory: That was a big deal in a way. Things aren’t a big deal anymore. Like, all the alien talk, I feel like we got a lot more excited about the Higgs boson.

[55:38] Matt: It’s crazy what they’re doing to us with the aliens. This slow reveal. It’s crazy. They’re like, okay, let’s show them the body of an alien, but let’s show it to mexican congress.

[55:53] Rory: But that’s not real.

[55:55] Matt: Okay, but they’re doing something. What was it? It was like a cake.

[56:01] Rory: I don’t know. But why would they look like humans? So much symmetrical, with four limbs, two eyes.

[56:11] Matt: Well, it’s possible that that’s just what things look like.

[56:15] Rory: It is possible.

[56:17] Matt: It’s possible that when life evolves, that’s like, a natural way for it to evolve, because also, I always find it insane that literally everything on earth looks like that, even a fly.

[56:32] Rory: Oh, yeah. Symmetry is like, on earth is incredibly.

[56:37] Matt: Not just symmetry. Two eyes, two little nose holes in a mouth.

[56:41] Rory: That’s kind of.

[56:42] Matt: Unless you’re what?

[56:43] Rory: That’s a little bit symmetry, though.

[56:45] Matt: No, but the one mouth, the two eyes. A spider, too. It has a billion eyes, but they’re concentrated in two big balls.

[56:57] Rory: Big balls. Balls.

[57:03] Matt: Balls. More symmetry. Yeah. The bilateral symmetry.

[57:10] Rory: Makes the deep ocean so scary. Is like, there’s asymmetrical creatures down there. Yeah, and that’s freaky deaky, because it’s like something to do with the way we’ve evolved with the sunlight.

[57:23] Matt: Yeah.

[57:24] Rory: Versus deep oceans. Not having sunlight results in asymmetry or radial symmetry. What’s radial symmetry?

[57:34] Matt: Radial symmetry is like a starfish or a jellyfish.

[57:40] Rory: That’s exactly what came to mind when you said radial symmetry. A starfish. Freaky. Starfish are freaky.

[57:48] Matt: Yeah. Gross. Sorry. Oh, wow. That was visceral. I had a dried starfish when I was a kid that was like on my dresser.

[58:01] Rory: Yeah.

[58:02] Matt: And one of its legs broke and it was filled with this black vermicelli noodles. It was so gross.

[58:10] Rory: Ew. Yeah. Yikes.

[58:14] Matt: You think it’s like cute dried thing. You think it’s like a seashell. Harmless.

[58:20] Rory: Totally.

[58:21] Matt: And then it’s full of disgusting body parts. I haven’t thought of that in 30 years.

[58:33] Rory: It’s so HGTV. Beach house decor. And to think it can. The horrors of life. Anything else we want to say about water?

[58:51] Matt: Well, is it how to be? Do we want to give a little verdict?

[58:56] Rory: Yeah. I can’t not drink a lot of water, but I will say that one of the reasons why I think I’m so thirsty is because I drink water. Like drinking water begets the need for more water.

[59:07] Matt: Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?

[59:08] Rory: You never start with this 1800 glass of water a day. When I go to a restaurant or a bar, it’s like I can never have an alcoholic drink without a big thing of water.

[59:21] Matt: Always water.

[59:22] Rory: It’s exhausting. And you know what? Everyone knows about me? I pee 100,000 times a day. So no, drink as little as water as you can to be healthy.

[59:33] Matt: Yeah. To survive. Yeah, dry out like that, starfish.

[59:40] Rory: Yes.

[59:42] Matt: I say drink it while you got it. And then during the water wars, we’ll all talk about the full toilets.

[59:53] Rory: Yeah. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why I want to move back to Chicago. I want to be near the fresh.

[59:56] Matt: Water when the water wars. Yeah, I really do think that. And I watched this video recently about Carrington events like a solar storm knocking out all electricity on earth. And I really do think people should have kind of like a few weeks worth of water at the minimum in their.

[01:00:27] Rory: Because. Because I live in California and earthquakes are like an, you know, looming over our heads. We’re always supposed to have water around, but it’s really hard to store.

[01:00:42] Matt: Yeah, it’s really hard to store. You can’t put it under your bed.

[01:00:46] Rory: And it’s usually in these plastic jugs where the water gets disgusting after a little while. Being in the plastic jugs. So it’s like a logistical nightmare to be like, oh, this water is going to go bad. Let’s drink it and then re up it.

[01:01:02] Matt: No, that water lasts forever. It’s sealed.

[01:01:05] Rory: No, it tastes terrible if it’s been in the plastic for more than x amount of time.

[01:01:14] Matt: Really?

[01:01:14] Rory: Oh, horrible.

[01:01:15] Matt: Yeah, it’ll do in an emergency.

[01:01:19] Rory: You know what? That’s so funny because we had an earthquake expert come and talk to us at my job, and he’s like, and you have to replace your water. And people will say it’ll do in an emergency when it tastes terrible, but it won’t. It’s too terrible to drink.

[01:01:36] Matt: So how quickly does it taste terrible?

[01:01:39] Rory: I don’t know. I’d have to google it, like a year or two, especially if you don’t have, like, a well temperatured control apartment.

[01:01:48] Matt: A year or two? Is there anything better we can put it in?

[01:01:51] Rory: Well, you can buy box water, which is really expensive, or canned water, which is also really expensive. But canned water is the best way to go. But it’s in cans. I don’t know.

[01:02:03] Matt: Could you get, like, a big canister? But that’s even harder to store, like.

[01:02:08] Rory: A big, giant tuna fish can that they make, that they send to, like, cafeterias.

[01:02:15] Matt: Yeah, something like that. All right, well, stock up water somehow. Consider what we’ve said. Consider yourselves warned about the water wars.

[01:02:31] Rory: Yeah, I’m sure it’s the first time you’re hearing about it on this podcast.

[01:02:35] Matt: I’m sure it’s the first time you’re hearing about it in a couple of months. Something we forget about every now and again.

[01:02:41] Rory: But the important thing is that when the water wars happen, we still talk very sweetly to the water we do have.

[01:02:47] Matt: Yeah, don’t mention the water wars to the water. Peace and love. And we’re going to try that rice experiment. We’re going to get back to you.

[01:02:58] Rory: We’ll get back to you.

[01:02:59] Matt: Until then, stay hydrated.

[01:03:02] Rory: Bye. It’s.